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What? Am I hearing correctly? You don’t think I was right? Who said your job was to think, spring wiener? Just use this vast reserve of brainpower to consider this for a moment. If it wasn’t for me, Andy wouldn’t pay any attention to you at all! In fact, my stretchy friend, you would’ve been hauled off to Goodwill a long time ago, so shut your mouth and get them off the bed! Do it now, Slink, or I’m throwing you off! |
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| —Woody | ||
The Black Friday reel is an infamous storyboard reel in the Pixar movie Toy Story, which nearly resulted in the film being canceled after being shown on November 19, 1993. The only bit shown in full was an alternate take on how Buzz got knocked out of the window, although the documentary Black Friday: The Toy Story You Never Saw showed two other snippets showing Slinky attempting to get up onto the bed as well as what was presumably an alternate take on the birthday scene.
Overview[]
The scene, alongside most of the original storyline, was inspired by then-Disney Chairman Jeffrey Katzenberg's demand that the movie have a more adult, cynical edge to it. This likewise made Woody out to be a callous jerk who let his role of leadership get to his head and treat the toys he lorded over very harshly. When the scene was shown on November 19, 1993 to various studio executives, alongside the original reel, Roy E. Disney and the other Disney heads were disgusted with the result, and John Lasseter felt embarrassed throughout the whole thing because of how extremely unhappy, unsympathetic and mean the characters were. This resulted in Disney nearly shutting down the production of Toy Story, with the production team requesting two weeks to make alterations and do the film they wanted to do. One of the changes was that Woody's characterization was significantly softened so that the audience will sympathize with Woody as well as wish for him to not undergo the actions he took instead of viewing him as an antagonist.
Ironically, the 1989 Original Screenplay for the movie Beauty and the Beast had been scrapped by Jeffrey Katzenberg for the same reasons why the Black Friday reel was created, due to it being perceived for being dark.
Differences[]
- During the birthday scene in the reel, Rex was even more distraught over the possibility of being replaced, to the extent of clinging to Slinky and saying "we're doomed!" in the midst of sobs, causing Woody (who was still on the bed), in a significantly more fed up manner, to yell "alright" repeatedly, as well as saying "save your batteries" in a significantly more snarky tone.
- In addition, with the exception of the specific instance where Woody throws Buzz out of the window, Woody is shown in the scenes to be constantly sitting on the bed (as well as clearly irritated when Slinky is incapable of getting up onto the bed), while in the movie, he has far more direct interactions with the other toys, even interacting with them on the ground and very rarely shown to be on the bed.
- In the scene, Woody deliberately throws Buzz out of the window, and callously admits it when accused of such, and clearly has no remorse for his actions, believing the world to be of a "toy-eat-toy" nature, and even spends his time confidently insulting his toys and clearly not registering that the toys posed a genuine threat to him until it was far too late (even sarcastically asking them what army they possessed when they threatened to throw him off if he didn't willingly get off the bed just before Sarge and his Army men burst out of the container to attack him). In the final version, Woody knocking Buzz out of the window was an accident, he was horrified at what he had done, and he tried to explain that it was, in fact, an accident to the disbelieving toys, and was also very clearly terrified of the toys' growing hostility even BEFORE they decided to throw him off the bed at the very least.
- In the scene in question, all the toys were disgusted with Woody's action. In the final version, while most of the toys (especially Mr. Potato Head and Hamm) were clearly angered and hostile towards Woody, Bo Peep, and Slinky actually believed he was innocent, while Rex was unsure whether he is or not and was fearful of taking sides.
- On a related note regarding Bo Peep, in the final film, as noted above, Bo Peep was one of the few toys to believe Woody was, in fact, innocent of Buzz falling out the window, while in the Black Friday reel, not only was she disgusted with Woody's action, she was even the first to accuse Woody of having deliberately thrown Buzz out the window, compared to how Mr. Potato Head is the first toy to accuse Woody in the final film.
- Sarge's dialogue was extended in the Black Friday reel. In particular, when telling off Woody, he finishes his statement about Woody not deserving to wear a 10 gallon hat on his "pint-sized head" before ordering for his men to conduct a search and rescue before Woody literally shuts him up mid orders by stuffing him in the army men canister while casually and sarcastically saying "at ease, soldier.", and his orders when attacking Woody were extended to be much more strongly worded, including making explicit references to the concept of taking no prisoners, going for the throat and overall outright killing Woody. In the final film, Woody out of sheer panic stuffed him back in the Army men canister before he could even mention Woody's hat, and most of his threatening orders were toned down and obscured by the clamor of the toys ganging up on Woody to prepare to throw him out of the window as well as Bo Peep's verbal attempts at quelling the situation.
- In the Black Friday reel, the confrontation with Woody occurred on Andy's bed due to Woody having relocated back there in the confusion of the toys frantically searching for Buzz and smugly getting back to his position. In the final film, the entire scene from when Buzz fell out the window up to the toys ganging up on him occurred entirely on Andy's desk.
Transcript
View the episode's transcript here.
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